{"id":3477,"date":"2026-06-25T17:29:50","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T08:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vietnam-gift.com\/news\/nom-michelin-saigon\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T17:29:50","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T08:29:50","slug":"nom-michelin-saigon","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/vietnam-gift.com\/en\/news\/nom-michelin-saigon\/","title":{"rendered":"The story of a Singaporean who fell for street food and won a Michelin star"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Singaporean chef who frequented the back-alley stalls of Ho Chi Minh City refined that flavor and claimed a Michelin honor. In the 2026 edition of the \u201cMICHELIN Guide Vietnam,\u201d \u201cN\u00d4M Dining,\u201d led by Chris Fong, received the \u201cOpening of the Year\u201d award\u2014given in Vietnam for the first time. Rather than the number of stars or the ranking of a long-established restaurant, what was recognized was that a cook who came from outside reconstructed Vietnam\u2019s street-food culture\u2014a fact rich in implications for Japanese travelers seeking their next spot in Ho Chi Minh City, and for Japanese companies trying to engage with the local food culture.<\/p>\n

A foreign chef won a Michelin honor with street-food flavors<\/h2>\n

The winner is \u201cN\u00d4M Dining\u201d in Tan Dinh ward, Ho Chi Minh City. It\u2019s a restaurant by Singapore-born Chris Fong, and all its dishes are inspired by Vietnamese street food. Fong has a background of honing his skills in Japan, China, and Singapore, and says his mother\u2019s home cooking is the origin of his own culinary outlook. What prompted him to start the restaurant was a pure infatuation with the flavors he encountered at Ho Chi Minh City\u2019s stalls.<\/p>\n

The restaurant\u2019s name \u201cN\u00d4M\u201d derives from \u201cchu Nom,\u201d the logographic script once used to write the Vietnamese language. It\u2019s a script that arose to express uniquely Vietnamese words based on Chinese characters, and Fong explains that he put into this name \u201ccreativity and an aspiration to build a clear identity.\u201d The choice to deliberately place a uniquely Vietnamese cultural symbol at the restaurant\u2019s core\u2014despite being a foreigner\u2014aligns cleanly with the reason for the award.<\/p>\n

What is \u201cOpening of the Year\u201d?<\/h2>\n

Michelin\u2019s \u201cOpening of the Year\u201d is an award given to teams among dining establishments that opened within the past 12 months that showed creative course composition and a culinary approach that influenced the local food scene. On an axis separate from the number of stars, it selects \u201cthe most noteworthy new opening of the year,\u201d and in Vietnam N\u00d4M is the first winner.<\/p>\n

What the judges valued in N\u00d4M was that it reconstructed Vietnam\u2019s culinary heritage as an experience. Each floor represents a region of Vietnam, and the course journeys through food from the north to the center, closing with a dessert inspired by the south. Placing a \u201cmini-museum\u201d of traditional crafts inside the restaurant, the immersive design that unifies food and story lifts the simplicity of street food into contemporary fine dining.<\/p>\n

The 2026 MICHELIN Vietnam in numbers<\/h2>\n

N\u00d4M\u2019s award came in a milestone year when Vietnam\u2019s Michelin gained depth. The main numbers for the 2026 edition are as follows. All are limited to those that could be corroborated by multiple public sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Classification<\/th>\nNumber in the 2026 edition<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
One-star restaurants<\/td>\n11 (of which 2 new)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Bib Gourmand<\/td>\n72 (of which 11 new)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Green Star<\/td>\n3 (of which 1 new)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Selected listings<\/td>\n110 (of which 9 new)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Target cities<\/td>\nHanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

The 11 one-star restaurants are said to be the most since the Vietnam edition of Michelin began in 2023. While starred restaurants don\u2019t reach two or three stars, the current standing of the country\u2019s dining scene shows in the fact that the total number of listings and the base of Bib Gourmand are expanding. Rather than reaching to compete at the very top, it means entering a phase where \u201ccapable restaurants you can visit routinely\u201d and \u201cnew restaurants with a story\u201d grow at the same time.<\/p>\n

The response shown by N\u00d4M\u2019s clientele<\/h2>\n

Worth noting is the clientele. According to the original article, Vietnamese make up 30\u201335% of N\u00d4M\u2019s customers, at times reaching 40%. \u201cVietnamese-style fine dining\u201d aimed at foreign tourists isn\u2019t unusual, but a restaurant supported by a certain proportion of local customers is more readily regarded as the real thing. That local customers who know the flavors inside out choose a restaurant with street-food origins itself backs up the persuasiveness of the reconstruction.<\/p>\n

Organizing the local and industry reception, it broadly converges on three points. First, a precedent was set in which a foreign chef was evaluated for \u201cdigging deep into\u201d rather than \u201cconsuming\u201d Vietnamese food culture. Second, the method of translating cultural resources such as chu Nom and region-by-region floors into experience design is beginning to be referenced as a new type of fine dining. Third, it showed that street food\u2014the most familiar food of all\u2014can become an object of evaluation for a global guide. Fong himself repeatedly recounts advice he received from an acquaintance who runs a Vietnamese restaurant in Australia: \u201cWhat matters is not where you came from, but where you want to go.\u201d A stance of stepping into local culture regardless of origin ended up leading to recognition.<\/p>\n

Implications for Japanese travelers and Japanese companies<\/h2>\n

For travelers, N\u00d4M is clearly positioned as \u201ca new restaurant to book in Ho Chi Minh City.\u201d Because it starts from street food, the more you\u2019ve eaten Vietnamese food at least once, the more you can enjoy the surprise of how a familiar plate has been remade. If you want to taste pho and home cooking in their simple form, reading it in comparison with theNgon Western-mansion article<\/a>that covers a Western-style mansion restaurant in Hanoi, and theHue-style chicken pho article<\/a>that digs into a bowl of chicken pho, reveals both ends of \u201cthe simple flavor of the stall\u201d and \u201cthe reconstructed course.\u201d For those who want the home flavor itself, thehome-cooking restaurant article<\/a>that covers a Saigon home-cooking restaurant is also a complement.<\/p>\n

The implications for Japanese companies are broader still. The case of a foreigner refining local food culture and earning high praise shows the stance to take when engaging with food in the Vietnamese market. Rather than bringing in a template-like \u201cJapanese style\u201d or \u201cupscale route,\u201d starting from and reconstructing local ingredients, cooking, and cultural symbols is more likely to reach both local customers and evaluating bodies. Even when handling Vietnamese ingredients in OEM or product development, how to make use of the context of the production area and cooking culture becomes the core of differentiation.<\/p>\n

Ripple effects on the dining market<\/h2>\n

N\u00d4M\u2019s award gives Vietnam\u2019s restaurant industry stimulus in two directions. One is the conviction that refining your own country\u2019s assets\u2014street food and popular fare\u2014can put you on the world\u2019s axis of evaluation. Combined with the fact that Bib Gourmand has expanded to 72 restaurants, it becomes clear that not just \u201cupscaling\u201d but \u201crefining familiar food\u201d can be a growth engine. The other is the effect of encouraging the entry of foreign chefs and investors. If understanding of local culture is valued regardless of origin, then for cooks in the region, including from Singapore and Japan, Ho Chi Minh City becomes a stage worth taking on.<\/p>\n

Practical information for N\u00d4M Dining<\/h2>\n